The Summer's Biggest Bomb.... (1 Viewer)

[Scott Weinberg]

...has GOT to be Eight Legged Freaks, a movie that I really liked. :frowning: Just to give you a clear indication of what a B.O. disappointment this one was, here's a list of movies that made MORE MONEY than 8LF:
Super Troopers
The Master of Disguise
Rollerball
Van Wilder
Hart's War
All About the Benjamins
The Sweetest Thing
The New Guy
The Crocodile Hunter
Halloween: Resurrection
Bad Company
Queen of the Damned
Dragonfly
According to Box Office Mojo, Eight Legged Freaks cost about $55 million (including marketing) and as of 8/8 it has made less than $16.5 million.
Compared to stuff like Men in Black 2, Mr. Deeds, XXX, and Scooby-Doo - Eight Legged Freaks is a freakin' Oscar contender!
I'm not cryin' for WB, mind you, but I'd love to see more monster movies and 8LF's overwhelming failure may put a monkey-wrench in the whole genre. (Like an idiot, I predicted this movie to make over $75 million...much like last summer when I predicted that Osmosis Jones would be a sleeper hit.)
So without responding with something droll like "People didn't go see it", let me know WHY this colorful little horror/comedy made such a resounding THUD at the box office?

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Amendment: Technically, Windtalkers is probably the biggest bomb of the summer, but that movie kinda sucked, so I don't care about it.

 

[KyleK]

I know why: Most people wouldn't know a good movie if it bit them in the arse.
Actually people probably saw the ads and said: "Giant spiders? That looks cheesy and stupid. Alright, everyone in the car, its time to go to Scooby-Doo!"

 

[BooneG]

The biggest bombs of the summer are:

Windtalkers (a movie that I really liked)
Eight Legged Freaks
Hollywood Ending
Dueces Wild
Bad Company
Juwanna Man
Hey Arnold!: The Movie
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Stuart Little 2
Reign of Fire
K-19: The Widowmaker (a movie that I hated)
The Country Bears

I also think that Spy Kids 2 will flop. I really liked this movie, but looking at the numbers for the weekend I think that the studio (we all know who they are) released it in the wrong timeframe. They should have stuck to the march release time.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

Quote:

I don't think most people do care about Windtalkers.

 

[Josh Simpson]

David Arquette(sp?) kept me away from Eight legged freaks. He annoys the crap out of me.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

The biggest bombs of the summer are:

Hollywood Ending bombed cause there was little press for the film. The only time I saw it advertised was when I saw the trailer to it prior to Death To Smoochy (another huge bomb).
Deuces Wild bombed cause MGM delayed it a million times just like most of their films.
We all know why Bad Company bombed (look at who directed it).
Juwanna Mann... I'm not even going there.
Hey Arnold: The Movie actually made money. It was originally the final three episodes of the television series, but Paramount edited the episodes together to make a feature film.
Stuart Little 2 was released at the wrong time, just like Spy Kids 2.
Reign of Fire got lots of negative reviews prior to the film's release.
K-19: The Widowmaker doesn't appeal to Joe Sixpack. "A movie with Harrison Ford doing a Russian accent? No thanks." Didn't Hollywood learn about people hating movies with actors doing the whole accent thing years ago with The Jackal and The Devil's Own?
The Country Bears is a live action Disney film. Most live action Disney films bomb.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

Windtalkers? Woohoo! That was my summer bomb prediction! What do I win?

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

What do I win?

The film on DVD!
I remember predicting last September that the film would bomb, just for two reasons:
1) MGM delayed it.
2) MGM ran out of money to spend on the film during production and at the last second, John Woo and company and to write a new and cheaper ending.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Don't worry Scott. With any justice it will find a home over time on video, like many great camp horror titles.
Of all the films this year, the only one that truly deserved to bomb, and did, was Rollerball. The film that truly deserved to bomb, but didn't, was Men in Black 2.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

The film that truly deserved to bomb, but didn't, was Men in Black 2.

I'm guessing you never saw Master of Disguise?
Yes, Men In Black II should've made less than $10 million and how it has made over $185 million already is beyond me (and beyond everybody else I'm sure). Too bad when the original was an enjoyable popcorn flick.
Also, Scooby Doo should've made $0, but it made $150 million. And I had to see it too.... ARRRRRRRGH.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Hey, at least Scooby had the freaky ability for Matthew Lillard to channel Casey Kasem. Men in Black 2 would have only been forgiveable if it arrived a year after the original and been directed by someone who previously worked on local community cable commericals. That way it would have an excuse for the shallow, humorless script and terrible comic timing matched perfectly with lackluster effects and total misunderstanding of what made the original so much fun.
As for Master of Disguise, I understand they are marketing it as a kids film. With that in mind, I can excuse what I saw in the trailer.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Eight Legged Freaks failed because of 2 words

DEVLIN and EMMERICH

The hacks that somehow made a good movie in Stargate and cranked out the sh**fests ID4, the blasphemous Godzilla, and the only movie I ever almost walked out of The Patriot

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I also think that Spy Kids 2 will flop. I really liked this movie, but looking at the numbers for the weekend I think that the studio (we all know who they are) released it in the wrong timeframe. They should have stuck to the march release time.

Unfortuneately, it wasn't done in March. But I agree, that planning for a August release was a bad idea. Still, if it manages to pull in 38 million it will be considered a success, and that's very probable considering the 5 day take stands at 25 million. I guess that's the advantage of the Robert Rodriguez school of low budget filmmaking.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Good choices all, but it's important to remember what a movie cost before designating it a bomb.
Title - - - Cost - - - U.S. Box-Office
Windtalkers - $145m - $40.5m
Eight Legged Freaks - $55m - $16.3m
Deuces Wild - $40m - $6m
Hollywood Ending - $19m - $4.8m
Bad Company - $100m - $29.5m
Juwanna Mann - $25m - $13.3m
The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course - $32m - $26.2m
Undercover Brother - $43m - $38.3m
Halloween: Resurrection - $33m - $29.4m
Hey Arnold!: The Movie - $16m - $13.5m
The New Guy - $33m - $28.9m
The Powerpuff Girls Movie - $26m - $11.2m
Stuart Little 2 - $160m - $50.3m
Reign of Fire - $90m - $40.7m
Enough - $68m - $39.1m
About a Boy - $47m - $40.6m
Like Mike - $55m - $49.2m
Unfaithful - $75m - $52.7m
K-19: The Widowmaker - $135m - $32m*
The Country Bears - $70m - $13.5m*
The Master of Disguise - $46m - $18.6m*
(Nearly all of theses numbers come from www.BoxOfficeMojo.com . Budgets are estimates with marketing costs included, and tallies are accurate as of 8/8. * denotes a movie still in viable release.)
It's not necessarily how much a movie brings in; it's how much cash it makes in relation to overall cost.
But you guys all know this already! I just thought making up that chart would be fun. (It wasn't.)

 

[Tino]

Eight Legged Freaks is Citizen Kane compared to the offal that is Windtalkers, the years worst film by far. Happy to see that it bombed and was wisely rejected by the majority of the moviegoing public. $40 million? It shouldn't have made 40 cents!
BTW, I really liked ELF. It delivered on everything that it promised.

 

[Jason Seaver]

let me know WHY this colorful little horror/comedy made such a resounding THUD at the box office?

Well, I don't think the Wednesday release date helped. Folks read reviews for new releases on Friday, and if 8LF's write-ups were two days before, it doesn't help.

When the biggest name on the marquee is David Arquette, you're not going to suck people in.

And, I think people are wary of the whole "deliberately campy" thing. It's awful hard to tell the difference between homage and horrible in the ads. Even with the high-test effects, it looks like a Corman flick, and I don't think the public loves those like some of us do.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Well you could see it a mile away with two of these films.

Rollerball and Windtalkers had those dreaded delays that said "we have a turd on our hands and want to hide it somewhere else in the schedule". Maybe they even hoped to fix something in that time frame.

Now Gangs of NY has been delayed a lot too. However, when the studio bumps you all the way into the next Oscar season that says they have faith that the delay time has made the picture much better than it might have been (or the delays were some other factor that kept them out of the previous Oscar season).


Windtalkers was also John Woo and Nick Cage - both lining up several bad films in a row. And the film ended up not being good, nor being about the story as advertised.

Rollerball, well, that was just a wretched script and a remake that didn't need to be done. Although, had the remake followed the original plot in any manner at all and simply modernized out the 70's style I think it could have flown. But that's not what they saw it as obviously.


Problems for 8LF - David Arquette first of all. And the anchor actor for the whole film no less. Throw in some cheesy looking effects into the commercials. Then tack on a not-so-cool name (going for camp is a risk in this manner) and you just have a production that screams "phoning it in" rather than fun tribute in it's image.

The campaign behind it really added to this effect. I think they would have been better off with a hipper actor as the lead (to let people know the good intentions of the production), altered the name a bit (even Killer Bugs or something sounds a bit better I think), and definately change the campaign to indicate either it's ties with classic films like Them! or to showcase more of the campy dialog (in light comedy form) so that people see that the film will have tongue-in-cheek for the little romp, rather than playing it like a low-budget action film.

It's not like Tremors did any better. Kevin Bacon, while having done better work than Arquette at the time (better stuff was still ahead of him), was not really a much stronger lead that David and the whole corny action thing didn't sell that film either.

So maybe 8LF will become a cable-staple here in a year or two and amass a nice cult following. There's no chance of that happening to either Rollerball or Windtalkers, if that gives you any comfort.

 

[Malcolm R]

(Nearly all of theses numbers come from www.BoxOfficeMojo.com. Budgets are estimates with marketing costs included.

I'd definitely take his budget and marketing figures with a grain of salt. They always seem hugely overstated to me, and he readily admits that the Marketing costs are just a guess based largely on his personal observations.
As for Eight Legged Freaks, I think it was definitely the wrong time of year for this film. Perhaps around Halloween or maybe in the February-March timeframe. It didn't have the stuff for a "summer" release. It was a fun movie. Too bad more people didn't get to experience it.

 

[HenrikTull]

Yes, Men In Black II should've made less than $10 million and how it has made over $185 million already is beyond me (and beyond everybody else I'm sure).

Not me. I liked it, alot.